In recent years, the Internet has made possible online commerce services. Typically, a customer visits the web site of a merchant that has set up a network-based commerce system. Once the customer has selected some items to buy, the customer follows hyperlinks to a section of the web site (for example, to a “Checkout” page) where the customer is asked to enter information about the customer's method of payment for the items such as a credit card number, credit card verification code, bank account number, or the like. The web site may query the customer as to whether the network-based commerce system should store such account-identifying information in case the customer later returns to the merchant's web site to purchase other items sometime later, so that the customer does not need to re-enter this information.
Once the customer enters the information, the network-based commerce system may contact the customer's bank, a credit card processor, or other financial institution and request a transfer of funds.
This technique may be undesirable since it necessitates making available private account information to a number of different merchants. While most merchants are honest, the more merchants' network-based commerce system 104s store private account-identifying information that may be used to facilitate transfers of funds from a customer's accounts, the higher the possibility that some unscrupulous merchant may commit a fraud. It may also be undesirable or costly for a merchant to maintain a “merchant account” to enable direct payments with credit card processors or other financial institutions.
To overcome these drawbacks, some merchant web sites are configured as follows: When a customer has selected items or services to purchase and goes to the “Checkout” portion of the web site, the customer's web browser is redirected to a network-based payment system 110, typically run by a separate organization from the merchant. The redirection is accompanied by data or other token specifying the amount to be paid and the identity of the merchant. Once redirected, the customer may enter his/her password or other authenticating information and an indication of approval of the transaction to the network-based payment system, whereupon the network-based payment system may transfer the appropriate funds from the customer's account to the merchant's account, and then redirect the customer's browser back to the merchant's web site, sending along data or other tokens indicating that the payment for the items has been successfully made.
This type of system also has drawbacks, in that the customer's unity of experience is broken by being redirected to the network-based payment system web site and back to the merchant's web site. This type of system also makes more difficult some desirable features of merchants' web sites, such as the ability to allow a customer to create a store account, enter a promotional code at checkout time, or provide other value added services.